


Mr. and Mrs. Baggins

by LullabyKnell



Series: Lullabyknell's Hobbit Stories [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aro-Ace Team-up, Aromantic, Aromantic Relationship, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, Gossip, Hobbit Courting, Hobbit Culture, Hobbiton, Hobbits, Humor, Late Night Conversations, Marriage of Convenience, No Slash, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon, Pre-Hobbit, Pre-Quest, Scheming, The Shire, Universe Alteration, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4545390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LullabyKnell/pseuds/LullabyKnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo Baggins hated Lobelia Bracegirdle long before he'd ever met her. And in turn, Lobelia Bracegirdle, being the ambitious and overachieving sort that she was, absolutely, totally, wouldn't-have-spit-on-him-if-he-were-on-fire despised Bilbo Baggins long before she'd ever met him too. </p><p>Against all odds and their feuding families, they get married. </p><p>But it's not that kind of love story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dear, Do You Remember How We First Met?

**Author's Note:**

> This idea popped into my head around the same time that I was writing _A Way Things Should Be_. I immediately wrote down the few scenes and lines that came with, along with the general concept, for when I felt like stretching my Crack Hobbit Stories muscles again. (I'm making that a series by the way.) Anyway, I've got that feeling now.  
>  If you've read AWTSB, then you probably know that I like insane Hobbit Culture. This isn't quite as insane as that, but it goes wildly more Canon Divergent from the get-go. The plans for this fic are fairly sketchy if there are any (I'm not sure), the update schedule doesn't exist, and it could either be quite long or never continue beyond a couple chapters or so. 
> 
> Please keep in mind here that Bilbo and Lobelia are idiot, arrogant youths with very little concept of sexualities or genders or any of that stuff, and will remain generally undefined for the duration of this fic. They are not meant to and should not be taken as the perfect, pedestal example of how asexuality or aromanticism works AT ALL. They will not have a romantic or sexual relationship.  
> That said, enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: I've added one of the family trees I'm using for this fic. It's not a canon one. It has basis in canon, but I made parts of it up. I'm not changing anything about it.

 

Bilbo Baggins hated Lobelia Bracegirdle long before he'd ever met her. And in turn, Lobelia Bracegirdle, being the ambitious and overachieving sort that she was, absolutely, totally, wouldn't-have-spit-on-him-if-he-were-on-fire despised Bilbo Baggins long before she'd ever met him too.

Why? Because there was a long, ancient, and most fervent feud between the Bracegirdles and the Bagginses that had started years and years before they were born. They were _raised_ to this feud.

Or maybe the quarrel was between the Tooks and the Boffins, Bilbo's mother's and Lobelia's mother's families respectively. Maybe it was between those families that there was a burning, fiery hatred fueled by a damning history of crimes against one another.

Actually... it could have been between the Bracegirdles and the Tooks. Come to think of it, there had always been something between those families since that horrible incident at the pie contest a few generations back.

Just as, now that all these reminders were popping up, there'd been something or other, a peculiarly-shaped pumpkin perhaps, that had sparked a terrible quarrel between the Bagginses and the Boffins as well.

Or had it been a squash...?

Anyway, Bilbo and Lobelia's parents had history. History which their parents had inherited from _their_ own parents, in the proud, long-held, hobbity traditions of the Shire. And as it had been passed down to Bilbo and Lobelia's parents, so it was passed down to them: the perfect and irrevocable understanding that they unconditionally loathed each other's guts.

If things had been different, maybe their families could have hated each other from a distance, rarely encountering one another, and they could have gone on hating each other without ever meeting. But, unfortunately or fortunately, they couldn't do that. Because their families were, in horrible fact, actually the same family. A horror that was made possible by an unlikely and rather ridiculous amount of marriages between the two families for factions of the Shire that supposedly hated each other.

Yes, somewhere along the line of cousins and aunts and uncle and more cousins, at least one Baggins had married a Boffin, at least one Boffin had married a Took, at least one Took had married a Bracegirdle, and at least one Bracegirdle had married a Baggins. And if one supposed things were getting somewhat complicated in this mess of marriages and feuds and relations _now_ , then that person would be absolutely devastated to know that there were also Bagginses feuding with Bagginses, and Bracegirdles with grudges against Bracegirdles, and so on and so forth. The argument about whether in-family or inter-family feuds were worse had even managed to spark some feuds itself.

Bilbo often lost track of who he was supposed to hate, dislike, be upset with, and have a rivalry with. He'd much rather be home with a good cake, a good sofa, and a good book, and tried to be that way as often as he could. When he couldn't, he simply stayed perfectly polite to everyone, let his parents do the talking, inwardly disliked whomever he pleased, dreamed of his armchair and teacup and bed-stand book, and dreaded the day he became Head of the Baggins Family.

Lobelia, on the other hand, took to it all like a duck might to water and, whatever her honest opinions were, was very, very good at politely bickering and respectably squabbling with all the right people, all while maintaining strangely impeccable manners. She looked to her mother, Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle, for hints and went from there, parroting and paraphrasing subtle enmity through teatimes and dinner parties until she found the confidence to strike out on her own in the social battlefield. Many had been of the opinion that Lobelia's social grace only came from mimicking her mother, and they were swiftly proven wrong. Lobelia was terrifying, all by herself, in more ways than one, and her mother was very proud. Lobelia liked making her mother proud very much, almost as much as she began to enjoy commanding the attention of a room of her peers and being asked for her opinion on everything and having nice things.

Strangely enough, Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle never directly spoke to one another until they were on the cusp of being of age. Bilbo was well known to be a perfectly respectable gentlehobbit who was extremely good at dodging unpleasant conversations, and Lobelia had gathered a fearsome reputation as a formidable young lady and general menace. All the mothers and matrons and old biddies from Buckland to West March had them down as people to watch, with Bilbo Baggins down as the best gentlehobbit on the market and Lobelia Bracegirdle down as a matron-in-the-making, and everybody absolutely _knew_ that these two hated one another. And yet, despite all the dinner parties the two had attended and garden luncheons gone wrong they'd both witnessed, they'd somehow managed to avoid actually speaking to each other.

Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle could have gone on that way. Bilbo could have remained the gentlehobbit-to-catch for a very many years until everyone realized with disappointment that he was one of those “confirmed bachelors”. You knew the ones. And Lobelia could have gone on to marry Otho Sackville-Baggins, Bilbo's despised first-cousin, as a young hobbit miss was expected to, and been continually jealous that Bilbo had the best their society had to offer when he didn't seem to want it and didn't even _work_ for it.

But they didn't.

Fate spontaneously decided, as it was wont to, to go a different direction entirely. So Bilbo Baggins' first conversation with Lobelia Bracegirdle was not a stiff “congratulations” at her and Otho's wedding; instead, it was at the Worst Party in the World, an affair that was the direct result of Fate's decision to just... mix things up a little bit. Because why not.

When one imagined a turning point for Fate, they usually imagined drama, pain, suffering, betrayal, regretful mistakes, and gruesome battles. Or perhaps they imagined a lone stranger walking down a forest path, who comes to a fork in the road and must choose a direction. In either case, "The Worst Party in the World" had both these things, although probably not the way that one would normally initially conceive of. To be honest, though, Fate had chosen worse turning points before, titles aside.

“The Worst Party in the World” was not what had been written on the invitations. It was just what Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle came to refer to it as when they reminisced about the past. Their logic was that any party where you put the Bagginses, the Bolgers, the Boffins, and the Bracegirdles, and a few other unfortunate souls, in the same room together for more than five minutes obviously deserved the title.

They remembered every detail, a good memory being necessary to maintain respectability as perfect as their own. Well... almost every detail. Oddly enough, neither of them could remember who had been stupid enough to host the damn thing. But they didn't really concern themselves with that particular detail, as they were both fairly certain that the poor sod was pushing up daisies after an affair that disastrous. Lobelia swore that _she_ would have keeled over if it had been _her_ dinner party.

Bilbo usually commented that it had likely not been a very good idea – read: absolutely terrible decision – to have seated Blanco Bracegirdle (Lobelia's father) by Fastolph Bolger (Bilbo great-uncle by marriage), since the two's last interaction before that occasion had been a no-holds-barred fistfight. Probably not a sign of much sense in his humble opinion - a really, truly regretful mistake.

Lobelia often said that anyone who was enough of an idiot to put Ruby Bolger-Baggins (Bilbo's first-cousin-once-removed's wife) and Berylla Boffin-Baggins (Bilbo's great-grandmother) next to each other should have known better. Especially after the previous autumn's scandalous vegetable competition that had nearly ruined the entire Harvest Festival.

They also should have known they were courting a repeat of the rabbits and ferrets incident with Bruno Bracegirdle (Lobelia's elder brother) sitting next to Herugar Bolger (Bilbo's first-cousin).

And also that it had all been doomed the instant they put out alcoholic refreshments for people to just _help themselves_ to, without any sort of guard or watcher or anything.

Both Bilbo and Lobelia agreed though, that putting Belladonna Took-Baggins (Bilbo's mother) and Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle (Lobelia's mother) in the same immediate vicinity had been the worst decision of the night. An impressive feat, honestly. And also the most likely cause of death for the poor host, considering that the two women were the main reason that Bungo Baggins (Bilbo's father) and Bingo Baggins (Bilbo's paternal uncle) had had to run at one point for buckets of water to put out the curtains and the sofa before the flame spread further.

With a breathy sigh of deep disappointment, Lobelia also often said that it was a shame no one had actually managed to kill anybody. Because she fully felt that their family trees and abundant hordes of relations could have done with some good ol' trimming. Just a couple of twigs here and there. Maybe a small branch or two.

Bilbo usually hummed in vague agreement to this, likely picturing his horrible cousin, Otho Sackville-Baggins, burning to death while being mauled by ferrets and rabbits. Or something.

But this story is getting ahead of itself. Actually, no wait, this story doesn't even know where it is in the slightest, and needs to ask for directions because it goes any further into a highly-unpleasant, thoroughly-ridiculous history of feuds that goes too far back into the past to cover in a reasonable amount of time. It would entertaining, certainly, but there is actually a path to get back to. That one where a weary traveler is usually given two paths and had to choose which one to go down.

All you really need to know is that Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle had too much family, and all that family feuded far too much, and it put them on different sides of ancient conflicts which started before they were even born. At least until they removed themselves to another side entirely.

The terrible dinner party was just brought up because that is where Mister Bilbo Baggins asked Miss Lobelia Bracegirdle to marry him.

And it is also where she told him: “Yes.”

 

(Although... she technically asked him first.)

 

~

 

It happened almost in slow motion. Or, at least, it did in Bilbo's memories, probably from the pure horror of witnessing it happen and being unable to do anything about it or look away from the traumatizing disaster.

(Not the proposal. No, that happened later.)

Basically, as one might expect from a dinner party fondly remember as “the Worst Party in the World”, the party went completely to shit. It went completely to shit when two terrible things happened at exactly the same time, beginning a chain reaction of terrible things that became steadily worse.

The first thing was that Blanco Bracegirdle finally said something that caused Fastolph Bolger to snap and tackle him. The pair of them then knocked in Fosco Baggins, who accidentally elbowed his wife on his way to the floor. His wife, Ruby Bolger-Baggins, then reflexively punched Berylla Boffin-Baggins in the face. The old woman toppled into Bruno Bracegirdle, who was trying to show off his secret pet rabbits, which he'd smuggled in in his pockets, to his friend, Herguar Bolger.

Herugar Bolger, an animal-lover himself, was in the possession of numerous ferrets, all of which were deathly, unnaturally, and inexplicably afraid of rabbits. When Bruno suddenly fell forward, they bolted, causing Herugar to tumble backwards and send an entire table's worth of drinks all over the sofa and curtains of the parlor. The rabbits and ferrets scattered over the hobbits on the floor, who all screamed and tried to get away, knocking over anyone in the nearby vicinity who was somehow still standing.

The second thing that happened, simultaneous to the beginning of the action on the other side of the room, was that Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle, in the middle of a heated argument with Belladonna Took-Baggins, somehow sensed the madness rising and took the opportunity of impending chaos to punch Belladonna in the nose.

Belladonna, caught by surprise, stumbled back into her sister, Donnamira Took-Boffin. Together, as they'd done many times before, the pair of Took sisters launched themselves at Primrose. The three women knocked into Belba Baggins-Bolger and Linda Baggins-Prodfoot on the way down – one of whom accidentally smacked a burning candle and sent it flying through the air into the curtains, and the other of whom knocked into old Mungo Baggins.

Mungo Baggins had been in the middle of lighting his pipe, and dropped it onto the sofa.

Soon enough, Bungo and Bingo Baggins were running for buckets of water.

Later, everyone would agree never to speak of the affair again, so they could stiffly pretend that Hobbiton's high-society was perfectly and totally respectable despite the disaster, as was a long, hobbity Shire tradition.

The young Bilbo Baggins, who had been lurking in the kitchen to avoid talking to anybody, witnessed all of this from the kitchen doorway. He was only here because his mother had threatened to take away his current book for a week to get him to get out more, and he firmly decided that he was not going in that room again for anything. This was his opportunity to slip away into the freedom of the gardens and possibly sneak home, so he turned the other direction and slipped out the back door instead.

If anyone asked, he planned to say that he had been admiring the flowers in the back garden the entire time. They were, after all, so very beautiful this summer and completely delightful with their complete lack of snide insults, screaming, and being on fire. Ah, what sweet scents.

He didn't expect that someone else had had a very similar idea.

Lobelia Bracegirdle had sneaked out as well, as her relationship with her mother had become rather strained recently and she had had a feeling that something terrible was going to happen to that party sooner or later. She had a sense for these things.

After Lobelia's massive success in the social battlefield, Primise Boffin-Bracegirdle believed that the obvious next step was for her daughter to find a suitable suitor. Lobelia's mother was pushing for her to start a romantic relationship with the young gentlehobbit Otho Sackville-Baggins, whom Lobelia liked... sort of. They could be friends maybe, but Otho seemed to want more than that and Lobelia just... didn't. She didn't particularly want any romantic relationship at all, with anyone, and couldn't explain why. Although the prestige and attention of landing a good catch was appealing to her, as was the status granted to a well-married woman, she didn't really want to catch or be caught by anyone. She thought she wouldn't mind marriage too much, really, as long as there was none of that... touching stuff.

So she'd come out here to think for a bit about what the future meant for a female hobbit, and how she could keep her status in Hobbiton's high-society (maybe even get a greater one, which she would very much like) without having to get hitched to some mouth-breathing clod who might have ideas of an adoring, loving wife. She wasn't having much luck with ideas though, and was getting frustrated with the idea that her only other option might be to become a spinster, and the lack of respect and abundance of rumors attached to the position didn't appeal to her. And being a _spinster with a companion_ didn't appeal much for much the same reasons, except that one exchanged the mouth-breathing clod for some tittering twit.

Lobelia was working herself into quite a huff when Bilbo Baggins stepped outside, peering about to see if the coast was clear, missing her sitting on the bench behind the rosebush. He closed the door behind him and got a few feet when Lobelia's angry energy was too much for her to stay sitting any longer, and she stood up and turned around. The two hobbits were left not five feet from each other, staring at each other in wide-eyed surprise.

Lobelia got her eyes under control first; they narrowed.

“ _You_ ,” she near-snarled.

Bilbo's face became a study in abject misery.

“Me,” he replied morosely, realizing that his escape had just been ruined and that Lobelia would almost-certainly tell everyone about Bilbo Baggins oh-so-impolitely and unrespectably running away from a dinner party. He immediately made to save face, smiling nicely and saying, “It's a pleasure to see you again, Miss Lobelia.”

She put her chin up and sniffed, telling him clearly that she could see right through his greeting to how much he was actually pleased to see her. Lobelia was the sharpest hobbit miss in Hobbiton and her formidable social skills couldn't be fooled by his good manners, just as he could never have been fooled by hers had they spoken before now.

Lobelia always reminded him of a snake in the grass, only with a bit of a temper and very easily offended, but still waiting for the opportune moment and position to strike. Her words, no matter her facade, had always seemed to have a venomous bite.

“Always nice to see you too, Mister Bilbo,” she answered perfectly, her smile sickly-sweet and her tone even worse, dropping in her regularly high-society self that Bilbo usually put his whole self into avoiding. “We never seem to have the chance to talk each other much, which is, of course, such a shame.” She giggled; it grated. “You're so... difficult to catch.”

Then, clever play-on-words delivered, flirty enough to entertain but respectable enough to be proper, she tittered shrilly. As was basically required, in case the cleverness had gone over some of the more slow-minded hobbits' heads, and they needed to be alerted to the presence of a double-meaning so they could notice it and feel clever too.

All of it made Bilbo want to scratch his ears out, as he _knew_ Lobelia knew and reveled in.

“I do apologize, Miss Lobelia,” he said, his most charming smile plastered on to annoy her as much as possible. “I don't try to be. It's so odd, we attend so many of the same affairs. Perhaps I could try to be more available? I would hate for you to think that you were under the impression that it was your fault you couldn't catch someone.”

She'd never be so crass as to do so openly, but by the look in her eyes, Bilbo could hear her metaphorical teeth grinding. It was difficult, but he managed to quash the urge to smile with relish at how she clearly (to him) wanted to reach over the rose bush and smash his face into it. If she wished to play this game, then, by all means, they could play this game.

Laughter broke out from the house behind him, or maybe a shriek or scream of some kind, startling them both. Knocked out of conflict, Bilbo suddenly realized that he was standing alone, unchaperoned, in the dark, with Miss Lobelia Bracegirdle. They had a rose bush between them, complete with thorns, but it could potentially be taken as a Compromising Situation all the same.

If someone realized that Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle had both gone missing at the same time, and there was any sign that could have gone missing _together,_ the consequences could be severe for the both of them. Given the dinner party Bilbo had just escaped from, there was no way to predict what the reaction of the adults and general society would be, only that it would be terrible and there would be a lot of screaming and hair-pulling.

Looking at Lobelia, he could tell that she had come to the exact same conclusion.

They stared at each other for a moment, as the only way to avoid a disaster would be for one of them to go back inside immediately and for the other to disappear entirely or reappear inside at a different time and through a different door, with no sign they'd interacted. Lobelia couldn't disappear, because she was female and her mother would scream bloody murder if she vanished, and Bilbo couldn't disappear without Lobelia bashing a serious blow to his respectable reputation. Which meant that one of them would have to jump in the water and go back into that insanity first.

Looking at Lobelia, he could tell that she wanted to be that person about as much as he did.

Bilbo lifted his chin and straightened his spine, sending a message to Lobelia that he was going to hold his ground. Meanwhile, Lobelia widened her stance and smoothed her curls, telling him right back that she wasn't going anywhere either. The glare she gave him before they had their expressions back under polite control had him momentarily worried that someone _would_ be screaming bloody murder... over his corpse.

As if on cue, a strangled scream came from the terrible dinner party.

They ignored it.

“Oh, it would be so delightful if you made more of an effort to join us, Mister Bilbo,” Lobelia told him sweetly, batting her eyelashes and eyes glinting meanly, as though there hadn't been the slightest break in the conversation. “One might begin to wonder if... well... you act as though you're already a _confirmed bachelor_!”

Then she tittered again, and Bilbo's heart froze in his chest.

Before the end of her sentence, he'd been all prepared with an extraordinarily clever remark meant to show her what-for and send her back into that madhouse of a dinner party, but he hadn't been expecting that end to the sentence. It was mean, even for her. He hadn't been prepared for it at all, and it cut a little too close to the chest. So close that, honestly, it was more accurate to say that it just about stabbed straight through.

Bilbo tried to get himself under control to pretend that the remark had slid off him like water, but his expression faltered and he wasn't quite quick enough to fix it. Lobelia saw something in his face, naked fear perhaps, that made her sickly-sweet smile drop and her eyes become absolutely enormous.

He opened his mouth to say something, anything to distract her, but it was too late and she cut him off before he could get a single word out.

“You are!” she whisper-shouted, looking more scandalized than anyone might think that the fearsome Lobelia Bracegirdle ever could. “Oh my hills, you're... you're...”

“No, I'm not,” Bilbo said quickly, because he couldn't think of anything else to say in his panic.

“Yes, you are!” Lobelia countered immediately. “You're a... a...” She searched desperately for a word, but since there wasn't one that a hobbit miss would know or could be caught dead saying, she had to make one up. “You're a confirmed-bachelor- _in-the-making_!”

“No, I'm _not,_ ” Bilbo repeated, but his voice belied him, so it was even weaker than before.

Lobelia narrowed her eyes at him, or the lie, or maybe both. “If you're _not,_ then what are you exactly?” she demanded, all her perfect manners and respectability gone as she glared at him.

Bilbo opened his mouth and closed it a few times, and eventually settled on the truth. “I don't know,” he admitted honestly, miserably. He was a young hobbit and meant to be girl-mad, or even boy-mad might have made some sense, but he just wasn't and didn't really want to be. “I don't- There's not- I've not met anyone that I- ... I don't know.”

And just as he started to come to terms with the fact that he was doomed, utterly and completely and irrevocably screwed, he saw a miracle happen. Something in his words – _I've not met anyone that I..._ \- managed to appeal to the terrible Lobelia Bracegirdle. Her glare softened; her tension melted away; and her expression turned into one that he had never seen on her before, but would guess was sympathy or empathy or something along those lines. It looked uncomfortably new on her face.

“Oh, thank the hills,” she said with a relieved sigh, “Someone else who's _sane._ ”

Bilbo stared.

“Pardon?” he said.

Lobelia ignored this and gave him a considering once-over, the kind that was generally reserved for inspecting pieces of meat or livestock at the market. Bilbo had to resist the urge to fidget under her scrutiny and just stood there being very confused, since she basically held his reputation in her hands at the moment, but had also admitted to... He didn't know. Something or rather that neither of them were supposed to be.

“I think you and I could help each other a lot,” Lobelia announced in the darkness of the garden, having come to a decision, a terrifying smile growing on her face. “Yes, I think we could definitely come to an agreement of sorts, you and me.”

Bilbo could feel the sweat starting to bead on his back.

“Wh-”

Lobelia nodded decidedly.

“We should get married,” she said.

 

(In her defense, she'd been fairly young at the time.)

 

~

 

Bilbo had to give Lobelia the fact that, at the least, she _had_ tried her best to make her suggestion sound like something besides the threat of 'marry me or I'll ruin you'. The threat had been the general gist of the conversation nevertheless, but she'd at least taken a few moments to come up with benefits from his point of view and then logically present them to more kindly bring him around to her plot.

The fact of the matter was this: Lobelia did not want to get married. She had no interest in anyone, in romance, in marriage, in 'rolling around in the hay', or even in children. What she wanted, she explained in no uncertain terms, was to have a smial as nice as Bag End, a society that looked to her for all their opinions and trends, some good friendship, and, ultimately, respect. As things currently stood, she would probably let herself be pushed into marriage with Otho Sackville-Baggins so she could have a lot of those things, except she'd like to not have to do that.

Which is where Bilbo came in.

Having dragged him behind the rose bush with nails that threatened to puncture the skin of his arm, Lobelia had managed to all but throttle his (rather pathetic) story out of him. Which she had sensibly done before she'd told him anything about herself or her desire to be a respectable hobbit matron and wife without those horrible bits with romantic love or sticky-faced children.

Bilbo Baggins did not want to get married either. Unlike Lobelia, he would not be coerced into getting married by high-society, but he wasn't inclined to wander in that direction of his own accord. He didn't know what he wanted of his life, not having set goals and ambitions like she did, but he did know that he hadn't found anyone he wanted to do... well... much of anything with. The closest he'd gotten was desiring to have a conversation with someone specific, which was rather miserably pathetic when held next to his lovestruck, lovesick, girl-mad cousins.

So he would probably be a confirmed bachelor, but not because he was a _confirmed bachelor._ At least, he was reasonably certain that he wasn't. Admittedly, he thought he was more likely to be mad for that sort rather than girl-mad like his peers, but it was mostly just that no one particularly appealed to him. Lobelia seemed to have the same opinion about spinsterhood.

Lobelia's solution to both their problems, spoken with all the certainty of a headstrong youth who'd sudden come up an idea in the backyard garden of a dinner party and was trying to convince another youth to go along with it while they both hid behind a rose bush, was for them to get married. It was, she claimed with an iron, sharp-nailed grip on Bilbo's shirt sleeve that made him wary of moving, ideal for both of them – perfect even!

Bilbo would never have to deal with rumors of being a... well, _confirmed bachelor,_ and Lobelia would never have to deal with the rumors or lack of respect for being a  _spinster_ while _also_ getting the respect and high-society status that came from being a well-married woman. She would get to sit at the top of the Hobbiton food chain, as she so dearly wanted, and Bilbo would never have to plan social engagements or look after his social calendar ever again, because _of course_ she'd do that for them both. He would only have to sit back and let her take care of things, and no one would twice at a married couple of gentlehobbits of their respectable caliber and suspect a ruse.

No one would ever try to court them – except when they'd obviously have to court each other, which would be easy enough for intelligent hobbits of their social skills to arrange to their fullest advantages – and if anyone tried, they could _shut them down_ with damn good reason. It would be a marriage between... well, she hesitated to say friends... allies, perhaps. It would be an alliance of poor souls who had to deal with being the only sane people in a world of love-mad peers trying to suck each other's faces off or, ahem, 'rolling about in the hay'. They'd be free of all that nonsense.

Lobelia was not subtle about the fact that she would very much like to be the Lady of Bag End, almost as much as she seemed to suddenly adore the idea of marrying a confirmed-bachelor-in-the-making. Her mother, Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle, had been after the Bagginses' silver cutlery set for years now, and had passed on the envy to her daughter.

“But you don't want the cutlery,” Bilbo had found himself protesting, as he felt the need to try and make _some_ points against Lobelia's extremely tempting threat/offer. “It tarnishes, and it takes _forever_ to polish properly. It's an enormous bother.”

Lobelia's gleaming eyes told him that it was a bother she could live with, a cat-ate-the-canary grin on her face because she knew she was winning. The only thing Lobelia Bracegirdle would get from tending to fine things was satisfaction and pride, for having them and taking good care of them, and she would get a lot of those things if she had the Baggins silver cutlery set. The idea that _she_ would have the spoons her mother had always wanted was very, very appealing to her. She could hear the compliments of high-society in her head already and she _wanted._

They briefly discussed the problem of what would happen if they found themselves romantically or... um, more basely attracted to someone else. In that Lobelia, in her ongoing rant, stumbled accidentally onto the topic while Bilbo was thinking, and the both of them sat in stunned silence for a few minutes as they imagined that.

“No, I don't think so,” Bilbo said first.

“Completely ridiculous concept,” Lobelia agreed with a sniff, and then moved on to the other intricacies and benefits of her – their – plot. She still made sure to put that edge of threat in there though, she wouldn't have been Lobelia Bracegirdle if she hadn't.

Bilbo listened to her carefully, and thought thoroughly about it even more carefully.

It was all very, very, _very_ tempting.

So he agreed –

“I'll do it.”

– because, all in all, it sounded like a rather good idea.

As truly proper gentlehobbits never would have done, they shook hands on it. Hobbit misses were supposed to have their hands kissed, not shaken, but Bilbo stuck his hand out anyway, because Lobelia was no ordinary hobbit miss and he felt they had to do something but didn't particularly want to kiss her or anything. She looked extremely pleased to be treated that way.

And so the deal was struck.

 

(In his defense, he'd been fairly young at the time too.)

 

~

 

“We cannot walk back in there and announce that we're engaged,” Bilbo Baggins said to his future-wife, as they sat behind the rose bush and heard an oddly curdled shriek come out the window.

“Obviously not,” Lobelia replied disdainfully. “One doesn't simply _walk into_ a dinner party and declare engagement! As this is an alliance to serve our best interests, every courtship angle will have to be planned to achieve the most benefits, and every aspect of our relationship must be tended to carefully to serve our interests as the future most prominent couple in Hobbiton.”

A crash, oddly like a table being overturned, sounded next.

“We're going to have to be clever about this business,” she continued, unimpeded. “Especially given our families. This is going to require delicacy, which I have in spades, and a lot of subtlety, which I also have in spades, and some flawless acting ability, which I, of course, have in spades, and that _you'd better_ have in spades.”

“If I can lie to my mother's face, I can lie to anyone,” Bilbo answered, almost offended on behalf of his Tookish side. 

Lobelia raised a perfectly-plucked eyebrow. “Well? _Can_ you?”

“Of course!”

“Good,” she answered, seemingly oblivious to his indignant offense. Her face took an extremely determined twist. “Between the two of us, this is going to be the best bloody courtship, engagement, and marriage that the whole Shire has ever seen! Or will _ever_ see again!”

Bilbo imagined all of the courtship rituals, engagement parties, and wedding affairs that awaited them, and thought most fondly and wistfully of his armchair and book. But he straightened his shoulders and told himself to be brave, telling himself that there were worse fates than to permanently ally oneself with Lobelia Bracegirdle, because at least now he was forever guaranteed to be on the winning side.

“Besides,” Lobelia went on, as she was wont to do, “we're not engaged yet. You still have to ask me to marry you. It's traditional for you to do it.”

“Do you want me to do it now?”

Lobelia rolled her eyes. “No! Officially! In front of lots of people! Planned to the nth degree! Although hills know that you could probably use the practice, Mister Confirmed-Bachelor-In-The-Making.”

“You're going to have to keep that quiet, you know.”

“Do I _look_ like an idiot?”

“And it's not technically true anymore.”

Lobelia looked like she wanted to growl. “Given that we're not officially engaged, it still _could_ be,” she said dangerously, but Bilbo shrugged it off, secure in the knowledge that she wanted Bag End and its silver spoons badly enough for that to be an empty threat.

He slid off the bench, going to one knee in front of the vicious socialite that he'd spent most of his life avoiding at all costs. He took her hands in his, and stared up at her with his most adoring and loving of expressions.

Lobelia raised her eyebrows at him, looking entirely unimpressed for an instant, and then turned her expression into one of hopeful surprise and barely-repressed joy.

Oh, she was _good._

“My darling pumpkin,” he said beseechingly, “Our time together may have been brief, but it has been the most wondrous of all my life. I am enlightened by your warmth, your brilliance, and your passion. No longer can I live my life with you by my side. So will you, Lobelia Primrose Bracegirdle, make me, Bilbo Bungo Baggins, the happiest hobbit alive... and marry me?”

Lobelia gasped, the perfect picture of a stunned hobbit miss who'd just had all her dreams come true. “Oh, heart-pie!” she squealed quietly, an impressive feat in itself. “Yes! Yes, I will!” Then she leaped into his outstretched arms, and peppered the air above his face with kisses.

Then she seemed to get tired of playacting and pulled back, wearing an extremely toothsome grin. Lobelia removed herself from Bilbo's arms and straightened her dress, then straightened his slightly mussed clothing too, looking enormously smug as she patted him on his embroidered vest.

“This is going to go _swimmingly_ ,” she said gleefully.

 

(And it somehow did.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: In case anyone's curious, Lobelia is being written as largely sex-repulsed and uninterested in romance beyond the social benefits and boost to her ego. Bilbo is being written here as sex-neutral but entirely uninterested, with a similar disinterest in romance. BUT I often personally headcanon Bilbo as demi/gay, which may develop as/if this fic continues and he gets older. (And certain other characters are introduced.)


	2. Darling, Do You Remember How We Fell In Love?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedule still doesn't exist. This is something I do when I need time to think about other things. It's a fun break that's also a lot of work and there's no real story, so don't expect anything from this like regular updates or an actual plot thing.  
> I'm going to mark this story as complete, because it can stand alone on its own, but there remains the possibility of future chapters even so.

The first thing that anyone noticed was that Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle were suddenly standing in the same conversation circles at parties. And instead of Bilbo Baggins immediately excusing himself like he normally did, he stayed, usually standing right next to Lobelia, and they even occasionally exchanged a few sentences.

It wasn't... There wasn't actually a problem with it. But... it put everyone else in the conversation circle on edge, overcome with some sort of warning instinct that made their foot-hair stand on end. There wasn't something _wrong_ with it exactly, but it really wasn't _right._

But they got used to it. Even if Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle, like their parents before them and their grandparents before that (all of who were currently alive and kicking, possibly literally and probably at each other), were supposed to hate each other's guts and despise one another, and definitely _not_ be completely civil and even slightly friendly to each other. Hobbiton got warily and confusedly used to this small change in high-society dynamics, sensing there'd been a shift in the way the wind of Baggins-Bracegirdle-Boffin-Took feuding was blowing.

They didn't like it, but they adapted.

The two young hobbits' families convinced themselves that it was nothing, simply a... a... a _something_ in reaction to Otho Sackville-Baggins being sweet on the girl. If Lobelia Bracegirdle was going to be courted by Otho, then it made reasonable amounts of sense that she would try to get along with the boy's first-cousin and future Family Head. Even though Bilbo and Otho hated each other, had always hated each other, and it didn't actually make any sense at all.

Then, about a month later, a fair amount of time after the first glimmers of change had begun, in a conversational circle of young hobbits at Mirabella Took-Brandybuck's luncheon, Bilbo Baggins said something to Lobelia Bracegirdle that was definitely flirting. And she, in response, flushed prettily and giggled instead of taking offense as she was supposed to, and then flirted right back.

Forsynthia Diggle, Lobelia's best friend, dropped her jaw and her punch glass, one right after the other.

And the rest of the conversational circle wasn't much better. It went against everything they knew to be good and true, and yet they'd _seen it happen._ It was a good three minutes before anyone managed to speak again, during which Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle had stared with perplexed concern at their social group.

It took awhile for the adults to cotton on, with the bits of flirtation slowly becoming more and more frequent and obvious through various events and affairs, but that didn't help. No hobbit of any age had any idea what in the world to do about what was happening in front of them, except perhaps to get out of the way and be ready to run for the hills when Belladonna Took-Baggins and Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle found out their children were respectably (but rather shamelessly) flirting with each other.

If you squinted, you might think they were becoming sweet on... no... no, it couldn't be.

But it was! Everywhere the poor high-society hobbits of Hobbiton turned! Every brunch! Every baby shower! Every murder-mystery dinner party! There was Bilbo Baggins offering to get Lobelia Bracegirdle a drink! There was Lobelia Bracegirdle fluttering her eyelashes when Bilbo Baggins stopped to speak to her at the market! They couldn't escape it! The horror was everywhere they looked! Unprecedented! _Unnatural!_

Was it real? Could this be the fragile blossom that was the beginnings of... dare they say it... _love_?

 

~

 

“You need to stop that face you make after you've laughed at one of my remarks, Mister Bilbo,” Lobelia giggled as they spoke on the edge of the marketplace, having just 'bumped' into each other and struck up a flirtacious conversation in full view of the half of Hobbiton that was currently grocery shopping. “You need to seem _adoring_ of my wit and beauty, not look constipated.”

“I do not. This is what adoring looks like. Trust me, I've seen my cousins in love,” Bilbo refuted, doing his best to look like he'd just chuckled at a witty remark for the hobbits of Hobbiton who all seemed to have completely forgotten about their grocery shopping in favor of watching them.

“Well, trust _me_ when I say that there is _no way_ I would fall in love with a moron who made a face like that! Just do something about the aberration! I don't want to look at it. It makes my eyes hurt.”

“It can't possibly be as much as how much my arms hurt from your nails! Do you _ever_ trim the things? It's like there are claws clinging to me! And why do you cling so much? I thought we were only doing brief touches still, like hands touching when I bring you your drink?”

“We are! They are brief! When I'm to look excited, I grab you and briefly cling to show that when I'm emotionally unstable, I can't resist the urge to touch you somehow. Which I'm immediately ashamed of and I quickly let you go, bringing attention to it.”

“Fine. But can you at least trim those talons of yours? I'm getting welts. Welts are _not_ romantic.”

“...I'm sorry. I'll try to be more careful,” Lobelia said, twirling both her lace parasol and her skirts as though to show off to a beau just how pretty she was in pretty things.

Bilbo did his best to look appreciative, which was easy with that beautiful fabric shade. The embroidered dragon lilies on the hem were masterfully stitched and he had a shirt that would have been perfect for them in a slightly brighter shade; he'd have to ask Lobelia who'd done them and see if she could commission them for him, or show him how to do them if she'd done it herself. He knew for a fact that she was envious of how he embroidered roses, so the trade should be easy to make.

“Thank you,” he said.

Lobelia sniffed ungratefully. “ _You_ can just be more careful not to look constipated!”

“I don't look constipated!” Bilbo protested, smiling charmingly for their completely unsubtle audience not actually all that far away.

How did anyone in Hobbiton get any of their grocery shopping done while being this nosy?

“Yes, you do!” Lobelia replied, sounding sickly-sweet and batting her eyelashes at him. To anyone else it might look like she was flirting, but Bilbo had quickly learned that it actually meant she was horribly angry at him and hiding it until she could enact revenge.

“Do _not_!” he replied with a smile, because he didn't care about fluttering eyelashes, he _did not_ look constipated.

“Do too- oh _hills_ , that's my mother calling,” Lobelia realized, doing her best to look devastated that she was being torn away from her most beloved and favorite-est person in the world. “I've got to go! Remember the plan for the Proudfoot elevenses affair tomorrow! And the Tobhern wine and cheese to-do afterwards! Wear the mauve shirt this time! We need to coordinate!”

Bilbo's brows furrowed in what looked like unhappiness and desperation to get his sweetheart to stay longer, but was actually just vague frustration at sudden changes to their marriage plot. “I thought we agreed on the forest green?”

Lobelia leaned in to whisper one last thing in her beloved's ear before she had to scamper away lest her mother see her engaged in the beginnings of a forbidden love. One last message to encapsulate her feelings before she was torn away by the cruelty of their families' feud.

“Gilly Brownlock is wearing olive green and over your dead body will I or my prospective partner be caught in even vaguely the same color range as her, Mister Bilbo.”

“Oh.”

 

~

 

It all came to a head when Bilbo Baggins presented Lobelia Bracegirdle with a crown of flowers for her hair during the Harvest Festival. It was a very nice wreath of flowers, nicely put-together and it matched her hair and outfit perfectly, and Lobelia apparently loved it so much that she kissed Bilbo on the cheek with a wet smack. The only problem with it was that it came with Bilbo formally asking _her_ permission to ask her parents' permission to court her next spring.

And the problem with that was that Lobelia loudly squealed, “YES!” And then jumped him, kissing him on the cheek and being spun joyfully around by a delighted Bilbo until her flower crown was artfully lopsided in her curls.

The band stopped instantly, with the horrified fiddler's bow screeching loudly across the strings and the flutist accidentally biting their mouthpiece in half. One nearby hobbit man fainted into his wife's arms; Bilbo's cousin Adalgrim Took tripped and knocked over an entire buffet of pies; and the staring crowd was so quiet in the immediate afterwards that you could have heard a pin drop.

And literally would have, because Granny Laura Baggins was so shocked that her sewing, which everyone agreed hadn't left her hands for at least twenty years, got dropped to ground in her surprise.

The lack of sound was deafening.

Then the flutist noticed what they'd done, let out a squeak of surprised anguish, and fainted. Which prompted Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle to scream in horror, faint into her's husband's arms, and fall to the floor as Blanco Bracegirdle also fainted, leaving Lobelia's brother Bruno to stare in disbelief at both of his astoundingly fragile parents.

All eyes turned to Belladonna Took-Baggins and Bungo Baggins, Bilbo's parents. Bungo dumped his drink into the nearest bush, grabbed his sister Belba's, downed that, and then shut his eyes as though he could pretend that he hadn't seen and wasn't seeing the Menacing Miss of Hobbiton in his son's arms if he closed his eyes and tried hard enough. Meanwhile, Belladonna Took-Baggins simply stared in shock and deep betrayal, with a single tear rolling slowly down her cheek at the travesty against all that was good and decent in the world before her.

Bilbo carefully put Lobelia down.

Behind Belladonna, the Thain of the Shire, Gerontius Took, who was considered the peacemaker and mediator among hobbits, who was also Bilbo's grandfather and Belladonna's father (and who didn't visit Hobbiton much because he thought it had too many damn Bagginses, Bracegirdles, and Boffins), thumped his eldest son, Isengrim Took, who was Belladonna's elder brother and Bilbo's uncle, in the shin with his cane and demanded loudly, “What the hell is going on, damn it?!”

In accordance with the Shire's collective ability to cope with the unexpected and scandalous, absolutely everything went to complete shit.

 

~

 

“I think that went well,” Lobelia said.

Bilbo looked at her in utter bewilderment. “Well? _Well?_ I'm not allowed to leave the house!” he exclaimed. “My mother's forbidden me to leave until I'm fifty! Which is why we have to talk through a window in the middle of the bloody night!”

Lobelia ignored him. She did that a lot.

“Better than I expected honestly,” she said, leaning on the outside sill and speaking through the only part of the window that opened, a hinged piece of glass about the size of a fist. She had to stand on her tiptoes on top of the garden bench to do it, which she'd had to drag around the side of the house to use, leaving a small trail of destruction through Bag End's garden that would have Holman Greenhand, the Bagginses' gardener, tearing his balding hair out tomorrow.

Bilbo wanted to grumble, but he had to concede her point, which consisted of him smacking his forehead against his bedroom wall. Lobelia was right, it definitely could have been worse. At least nothing had been lit on fire and nobody had lost any piece of their body, which automatically made it all better than Bilbo maternal grandmother's last birthday party. Poor Adamanta.

“Why haven't you been forbidden to leave the house?” Bilbo asked curiously.

Lobelia scoffed. “I have been,” she said, tossing her curls over her shoulder. “And in response to having such _mean_ parents, we had a screaming row and I locked myself in my room. Then I shimmied out the window while Mother was having another crying fit or whatever she was yowling about.”

“Not about to let things like parents keep you from your business, eh?”

“Of course not.”

Bilbo hummed, wishing he could have done something similar. Unfortunately, his window only had that small patch that opened and wasn't that big to begin with. Which was probably why his parents had given him this room. His mother was a Took, after all, and she knew her escapism well.

“Alright,” he said, “so we spend the winter pining for each other while our families attempt to keep us apart and convince us that we'd be terrible for each other, while we loudly and unshamedly proclaim our love and devotion for each other at every opportunity to everyone but each other. Have we decided on trying to run to each other when we accidentally end up in the same place, or are we just going to gaze longingly until and as our families drag us away?”

“As much as it pains me to say it, you're right, we should go with the latter,” Lobelia said grudgingly. “We need to seem soulful and sympathetic. It's much more tragic if we're held apart. And we'll look pathetic, desperate, and immature if we try to run for each other. Should we mouth things to each other across the distance?”

“Maybe just our names? Or 'wait for me'? But only as we realize that we're about to be dragged away and might not get another opportunity.”

“Painful. I like it.”

“You would.”

Lobelia ignored this; Bilbo Baggins was getting a rather more accurate picture of her character than anyone else truly had and she'd rather pretend he wasn't. She found that having an invented personality with carefully applied bits of mysterious for intrigue served her better on the social battlefield, and tended to sabotage anyone who tried to look deeper.

Unfortunately, by this point, to sabotage Bilbo Baggins wouldn't have any benefits for her. (She wouldn't even, and she'd never admit this, get any enjoyment from making him suffer. He was a far less terrible sort than most young hobbit men she knew, although she'd never admit that either.)

“So, working separably on our respective family and friends, by the Spring Festival, we'll have all of Hobbiton gnashing at the teeth to let us court and mooning over our nonexistent love story,” Lobelia summarized.

“With any luck,” Bilbo agreed with a yawn. He'd tired himself out slightly while arguing with his parents about his terrible taste in women, and also before that when he'd been running from the stampede of hobbits running from the rolling horde of wine barrels and prize vegetables.

Things had gotten a bit mad after his mother had _really_ lost it.

“I don't rely on _luck,_ Mister Bilbo,” Lobelia said, thoroughly offended by the implication that her social position came about from anything besides family privilege and pure skill. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a big day tomorrow mourning to Forsynthia that my beloved has been locked in his room and I will never see him again.”

“Meanwhile, I shall be busy being locked in my room, pretending to be heartbroken while being bored out of my blood mind,” Bilbo answered scathingly, mourning the fact that he hadn't had the foresight to stock up on novels and poetry collections beforehand. And his inkwell was running low, so he wouldn't be able to write much either.

There was silence outside the window for awhile, which made Bilbo think that Lobelia had left, but since he'd never known her to leave without a farewell of some kind, hobbit manners too well instilled, he doubted it. And normally she'd just tell him to straighten his suspenders and get over himself if he'd said a remark anything like his last one.

Instead, she said something quite different.

“If it makes you feel better, Otho has declared that he will no longer be speaking to you ever,” Lobelia said conversationally, as though they were both at a luncheon exchanging gossip instead of having a clandestine midnight meeting to discuss their marriage plot.

Bilbo perked up, because that was good news indeed. “Oh, Miss Lobelia... has he really?” Bilbo breathed delightedly, a wide and uncontrollable smile overtaking his face.

“Oh yes.”

“ _This is the greatest day of my life._ ”

 

~

 

Despite his parents vehement disapproval of his proposed courtship of Lobelia Bracegirdle and restrictions on his everyday actions to prevent him from seeing more of the girl, Bilbo Baggins went about the next week with a gleeful skip in his step. His good mood could not be dulled for anything. Even when his cousin Otho Sackville-Baggins gave him a loathing glare and a ruthless cold shoulder over the Baggins Family Bi-monthly Brunch, Bilbo only sighed with wistful joy.

Such was the power of young love, most of Hobbiton supposed.

As Bilbo and Lobelia had predicted, their parents immediately went about trying to prevent them from even laying eyes on each other.

If Bilbo Baggins somehow managed to escape his mother's iron grip and tireless watch, even having come of age this past September, then Blanco Bracegirdle would have stuck his fingers in his ears and shouted an out-of-tune song rather than hear Bilbo ask permission to court his daughter. Blanco Bracegirdle would do anything but actually admit to himself that Lobelia had unforgiveably _given_ the boy permission to ask - he was convinced it had been a nightmare vision of some kind.

So Blanco jumped at small noises, terrified it was Bilbo trying to sneak up on him, and his wife Primrose was frothing at the mouth at that Baggins boy having the gall to go after her daughter! (Never mind that he was the best catch on Hobbiton's marriage mart by far.)

Meanwhile with Bilbo's parents, Belladonna Took-Baggins was going everywhere looking like she was marching off to murder someone, probably Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle, and Bungo seemed outwardly unconcerned besides the fact that he hadn't stopped making and drinking tea since the incident. All his waking hours were consumed by constantly consuming tea. His bladder was reacting accordingly; he never had to wait long to need to excuse himself from conversation these days. Which was actually quite conniving of him, since conversation was now almost always about his son and his son's new sweetheart.

After that week had passed, Bilbo's joy appeared to disappear entirely and Lobelia seemed to become rather downcast, as the two of them obviously realized that they were being held apart.

Bilbo took to sitting on the bench outside his home, staring out towards the Bracegirdle smial and sighing wistfully under his mother's watchful gaze. He always had a notebook in hand, and wrote endlessly inside it, seemingly ignorant of the chilled wind. When a gaggle of giggling hobbit misses inevitably came by, he would speak to them gently, eyes often drifting away towards the blue door in the distance, and couldn't seem to muster up the effort to pretend that he wasn't heartbroken and pining, much to their cooing and 'aw'-ing.

Lobelia invited all of her friends to tea and finally confessed her love of Mister Bilbo to them, crying that she couldn't hold back her feelings any longer and that she had known that their happiness would be stolen from them like this if they brought their secret love to light! Oh, woe was her! She sobbed into Forsynthia Diggle's skirt and apologized tearfully about how none of them would now get to be bridesmaids at her wedding, as she had so dearly wanted them to be, to share in the happiness on her special day as she became Mrs. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End.

If it had been Lobelia's intention to make her circle of friends light up with prospect of becoming the new _in-_ crowd of Hobbiton matrons, all taking tea in the beautiful parlor of Bag End, she masterfully didn't show it as she collapsed onto a sofa and sobbed at her cruel lot in life.

Hobbiton ate up the young hobbits' misery like it was Mrs. Bolger's prize-winning blackberry pie – juicy and sweet, leaving them hungry for more. Gentlehobbits all across the Shire exchanged their prime pieces of gossip as usual, with the scandalous story of Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle at the very forefront. Societal interests were being sparked all throughout the Farthings exactly as the scheming couple intended.

But the blaze didn't truly take hold until Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle finally encountered each other one more. It was purely by accident that they encountered one another (actually, it was the result of several careful weeks of blackmailing, mail-tampering, begging, pleading, plotting, and outright lying), but it seemed in that moment that their meeting had been destined by Fate.

Lobelia walked into the room as soon as Bilbo stepped through from the kitchen doorway at the opposite side. Their eyes met across the crowded room of Posey Cotton's parlor, and everyone in attendance stopped their conversations immediately to pay undivided attention. Aubergina Banker was so eager to hear everything that she slapped her hands over Nora Lightfoot's mouth mid-sentence. Poor Silas Meadowes shut his mouth to listen so fast that he bit his tongue, and then dropped to the floor and silently screamed in agony, all while still painstakingly watching so as not to miss anything.

And it was _worth_ it.

It was absolutely _heartbreaking_ to watch.

_Tragic._

Nothing happened.

Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle only stared at each other, like they couldn't believe what they were seeing, and neither of them moved, as though they were afraid that the slightest motion would break apart what was obviously a dream. The entire room – the whole world, it seemed in those seconds that lasted forever – watched and held their breath.

Then Lobelia slowly raised a hand, as though she was trying to caress Bilbo's cheek even with all the distance of a parlor between them, to assure herself that he was real. And Bilbo raised his own hand, fingers trembling, to put them in an embrace without touching.

“ _Lobelia,”_ Bilbo whispered, too faint to have been heard if not for the fact that the room was completely and utterly silent.

Lobelia's breath hitched, and she reached out further towards him, eyes glistening with the beginning of joyful tears. She made a move to step forwards, but wobbled as she did, as though her legs simply couldn't hold her up anymore.

Bilbo stepped forward – to catch her – to take her up in his arms!

And a white-knuckled hand closed around his shoulder, holding him firmly in place and belonging to Belladonna Took-Baggins, who was staring towards Lobelia stone-faced from expression to complexion. Bilbo froze and turned around to stare at his mother, his face pale and surprised and his expression somewhere between fear and guilt.

Across the room, another clawed hand closed down, this time around Lobelia's arm, drawing her back and belonging to Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle, who was staring towards Bilbo and Belladonna with an expression like she'd just smelled something unpleasant. Lobelia whirled on her mother, looking more devastated and heartbroken and pleading than anyone ever before or would ever again.

With a haughty sniff, Belladonna pulled her son back into the kitchen, grabbing Bungo along the way, with the intention of marching right back to the safety of the Lobelia-less and Bracegirdle-free Bag End. While, at the same time, with a disgruntled harrumph, Primrose dragged her daughter out the door, where they would return to the Baggins-free Bracegirdle smial and hopefully never lay eyes on Bilbo Baggins ever again.

Bilbo cast one last desperate look at Lobelia as they were pulled apart when they hadn't even been together, opening his mouth as though to say something, but he was without the words to give her if they were never to meet again.

Luckily for him, Lobelia only smiled in a bittersweet sort of way and blew him a kiss – which would have been a scandal in itself if this whole affair wasn't the most exciting romantic event to happen in the Shire in years – before her scowling mother slammed the door behind them.

Bilbo's smile at her gesture was as brilliant as the sun, overflowing his heart with the enlightenment that his sweetheart still loved him and shining out in his expression. But it too disappeared almost just as soon as it appeared, as his scowling mother pushed him out the kitchen door and yelled for Bungo to _'Just leave the buggering cuppa behind; we've got tea at home!'_

After the door slammed shut behind the Bagginses, the room exhaled as one. Then the hubbub of gossip swelled and burst like a cresting wave – hobbits were shouting loudly, screaming excitedly, sobbing tearfully, shrieking indignantly, and sighing dreamily at what they'd just seen.

Did you see it? _Did you?_ True love torn apart by a cruel and pointless family feud! Did you see his expression? Did you see _hers?_ Oh! The way his fingers trembled when he reached for her! The way she stumbled as she stepped towards him! An embrace that could have been!

And oh, OH, _OH!_ Did you see the kiss she blew? Did you see his smile? Did you? DID YOU?!

How unfair! How tragic! How cruel! Disapproving parents! Disagreeing families! Held apart by a trick of birth! A mistake of Fate!

But even entwined with the deepest of hatreds, who could stand in the way of a love like _that?!_

 

~

 

“We are _good,_ ” Lobelia said gleefully, sitting on a wooden-beamed fence at midnight with her 'sweetheart', both of them heavily wrapped in thick blankets to ward off the chill of late autumn and early winter. She rubbed her hands together either in victorious glee at their plan coming together or in an attempt to warm them up.

Bilbo handed her one of the mugs of hot cocoa that he'd brought, having been able to make the warm and delicious treat because his parents had retired early. Bungo and Belladonna had succumbed to exhaustion after trying to shout into his head what utter foolishness it was to get involved with Lobelia Bracegirdle. They'd been practically falling asleep where they stood by the end of their rant, so Bilbo had pushed his parents off to bed and tucked them in, and then gotten to putter peacefully around the kitchen like he hadn't in ages.

“Thank you,” Lobelia said reflexively as she accepted the mug. “Mmmm, that's good. You absolutely must give me the recipe.”

Bilbo snorted. “Absolutely not.”

“We're to be married,” Lobelia pointed out, eyebrows raised at him as she sipped her hot cocoa. “Your family recipes are to be my family recipes soon enough anyway.”

“Only if it works the other way around too,” Bilbo replied, taking a sip and feeling the warmth of the drink down to his toes. “And still no. I will hold whatever advantages that I can for as long as I can, thank you, until we married for certain at the least.”

“Hmph. Sensible of you to hold out until marriage, Mister Bilbo, although also idiocy because this would be the worst plot to get ahold of your hot cocoa recipe in the history of recipe espionage.”

“It's been done before, Miss Lobelia,” Bilbo pointed out mildly, because hobbits seducing hobbits for family recipes had been a tradition of the Shire for as long as there had been hobbits in the Shire.

Many a scandal had arisen from such plots, from grooms getting caught with the bride's siblings (brothers or sisters; sometimes brothers _and_ sisters) to get access to a cookbook, all the way to brides leaving their prospective husbands at the altar with cooking cards stuffed down their bosom. This thievery was the reason why the Bagginses kept their precious family recipes in a locked box in a secret cabinet behind the false back of another cabinet, only using the vulnerable written cards to permanently memorize the recipes when children came of age to do so.

Lobelia sniffed, insulted. “Like I'd do anything someone else had done before.”

“You would if they weren't expecting it,” Bilbo insisted, “and you would manipulate them into not expecting you to do whatever you were doing, which you'd probably pick to make them feel foolish for not expecting it depending on how much you disliked them, just in case.”

Lobelia looked at him, expression schooled in the perfect placid mask of a perfect hobbit miss.

After a few seconds, she finally said, “You know too much. I have to kill you now.”

Bilbo didn't feel too concerned about that, since he really did know far more than anymore else did about Lobelia Bracegirdle by this point, and she'd hardly kill him before she'd wrung every last bit of benefit out of him. (Besides, not that she'd _ever_ let it be known, but she was soft with him, which for her was somewhere between a kitchen knife and a hedgehog, but that was softer than she was towards anyone besides her brother nevertheless.)

“I know,” he answered plainly.

Lobelia stared at him some more, then harrumphed. “For my sake, I'll do it slowly over the course of our marriage,” she said. “But if you tell anyone a _word_ of my personal methods, Mister Bilbo, then I'll turn your toes into pastry, understand?”

“Perfectly,” Bilbo replied, taking another sip of his hot chocolate. “Anyway, I was thinking that I should send you my first Courting Intention gift next Wednesday around four, then start a bimonthly pattern until March, before going on a weekly pattern until the week before the Spring Beginning Festival, where it'll be one daily.”

Lobelia hummed happily, likely at the thought of all the presents she'd be receiving. They'd been collecting them since their plot was first hatched, buying them through cousins or making them personally, and Lobelia had chosen all of them herself with minimal suggestions from Bilbo. At such apparent devotion from Bilbo, a gift pile that would grow to fearsome heights, and under overt and covert pressure from Lobelia, their parents would have to fold and allow their courtship.

The Baggins and Bracegirdles would likely later try to sabotage the courtship at all costs, but Bilbo and Lobelia were well-prepared for that too. Planning their meticulous campaign had involved blood, tears, and sweat, and all defenses offered by their parents would inevitably fall before Bilbo and Lobelia's color-coded calender of might and situation response planners of power.

“That sounds acceptable,” Lobelia replied grudgingly. “But they're sure to get confiscated on both sides, so remember to wrap them with colorful distinction. They can't be delivered by you in person, and they have to be delivered in unexpected ways that are seen by large crowds or at least a handful of my neighbors.”

Bilbo sighed, having already memorized the list of ways that Lobelia wanted the Courting Intention gifts delivered to her. “Yes, yes, I know,” he agreed, knowing better than to point this out to her. By this point, he was convinced that her ordering him about was a sign of nervousness, a way to remind both of them so that everything went according to plan.

“Well, then, if you _know,_ ” Lobelia said haughtily, turning up her nose, “don't _mess it up_ , Mister Bilbo.”

“Or you'll kill me, yes, I really do know, Miss Lobelia.”

 

~

 

The first Courting Intention gift arrived in style. Bilbo gave the beautifully, brightly wrapped box with seven bows to his chosen messenger – his little first-cousin, Jessamine Boffin, the daughter of his Aunt Donnamira Took-Boffin. Little Jessamine squealed at the prospect of touching something so pretty and happily skipped through Hobbiton with it in her mittens, wearing her bright blue coat, immediately attracting the attention of every hobbit she passed on the way to the Bracegirdle smial.

Hobbits peered through their windows, peeked over their fences, and peeped around trees and buildings. It was a very, very pretty box, and the seven bows had been artfully arranged to look like a beautiful flower, and with just one look at it, any hobbit in Hobbiton just _had_ to know what it was. Their curiosity was so powerful that Jessamine attracted quite the following and there was a whole crowd shuffling and whispering at the gates when Jessamine gleefully pulled the Bracegirdle doorbell, brimming with all the importance of a preteen girl sent on behalf of true love.

The crowd hushed when a politely curious Lobelia Bracegirdle opened the door (having viciously elbowed her brother in the gut to be the first one to it), and they all gasped when Jessamine thrust the present into the apparently surprised older girl's arms and bubbled through her scarf, “This is for you! Cousin Bilbo said it's _really_ important!”

Lobelia gently accepted the box, politely thanked the messenger, courteously admired the bow, and tipped the box this way and that to get a better look at it. By the time she finally reached for the card attached, Jessamine was almost vibrating from excitement and half the shamelessly watching crowd was ready to scream, “GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! IT'S BLOODY COLD!”

“Oh,” Lobelia said softly, like all the air had escaped her lungs. Then a brilliant smile overtook her face, that of a hobbit miss who was truly loved and in love. “It's a Courting Intention gift,” she announced to the curious Jessamine, coincidentally just loud enough for the eager crowd to hear, causing one hobbit matron to scream in scandalized excitement.

Jessamine squealed in happiness. “I knew it!” she said, which was echoed by similar statements from the crowd, many of whom immediately scurried off to tell anyone who hadn't gotten the opportunity to come along and spy on people. “Cousin Bilbo's not giving up! He's still in love with you! Eeeeee!”

Inwardly, Lobelia admitted that her future-husband had chosen the perfect messenger for this, but resolved to never, ever tell him that he'd done far better than she'd expected he would. It just wouldn't do for him to get a big head about these sorts of things.

Courting Intention gifts could be fairly private things, depending on the couple, since it was meant to be directly delivered from the courter to the courtee. Therefore, every watching hobbit was exceedingly grateful when Lobelia delicately unwrapped the gorgeous box on the Bracegirdle doorstep, revealing a beautifully embroidered, cloth hair ornament – a deep, red rose. It was so romantic that one hobbit had to lean heavily on the Bracegirdle fence and fan themselves until they felt better, even though it was the middle of winter.

And then, of course, Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle came home, saw these things in her daughter's hands, and shrieked like the Brandywine was on fire. The beautiful flower and gorgeous box were immediately confiscated, Lobelia was dragged inside, and the adorable Jessamine was politely shooed away by Lobelia's brother, Bruno (who was awkwardly clutching his side), while Primrose loudly informed her daughter that she would _never_ be answering the door ever again. Even through the closed door, the crowd could hear Lobelia yelling back that she loved Bilbo Baggins and unless someone could give her a real reason not to, she'd keep on loving him until the end of her days! So there!

There was silence for awhile, then Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle's face appeared in the window and snapped the curtains shut, and the yelling proceeded at a far less discernible volume. With nothing more to see or hear, the crowd of hobbits ran in every which way to go tell absolutely everyone everything they'd seen or heard, and little Jessamine skipped home, later to be pronounced a traitor by her Aunt Belladonna while her mother quickly patted her on the back when her sister wasn't looking.

Some hobbits said that Bilbo had already announced his courting intentions and been rejected, so this was rather unrespectable, but they were countered by different hobbits who argued that Bilbo had been _accepted_ by Lobelia and rejected by her family for no reason. Many debates were sparked throughout the Shire, with hobbits arguing over whether or not it was acceptable for a Courting Intention gift not to be given in person, which was certainly debatable given the circumstances here.

Two weeks later, when Bilbo's Cousin Herugar Bolger, son of his Aunt Belba, walked right up to Lobelia at the market and handed her another Courting Intention gift from Bilbo, all of Hobbiton seemed to gasp in unison and the arguments continued. Some Tooks even started to approach Belladonna on Bilbo's behalf, while some Bracegirdles started to approach Primrose on Lobelia's – the children were clearly in love, so wasn't it time to let bygones be bygones?

This question stayed the topic of Shire dinner table conversations for two more weeks, when the third gift arrived by way of Bilbo's second-cousin, Prisca Baggins, at a purely female tea party for the young hobbit misses of Hobbiton. And that's when, the next day at the Green Dragon during a heated argument between Ponto Baggins (Bilbo's great-uncle and a strong believer in young hobbits doing what their elders told them) and Holman Greenhand (the Baggins Family gardener and a brave warrior for true love), the first punch was thrown on the matter.

By the next present, the mayor of Hobbiton had two black eyes from trying to prevent Mimosa Bunce-Baggins (Bilbo's great-aunt) and her daughter-in-law, Nicola Lightfoot-Baggins, from a fistfight over afternoon crumpets. He tried to call the Thain in, but Gerontius Took (father of Belladonna) had been ignoring his daughter's complaining about the Bracegirdles for months now, and expertly ignored it with an impressive and acrobatic display of selective hearing.

When March finally came around, people either weren't talking to one another at all, or were talking to each other and the talking was more accurately phased as 'screaming at the top of their lungs'. How _dare_ anyone stand in the way of _true love_ for something so absolutely ridiculous as a _feud!_ Several feuds were actually started over the matter, because tradition had to be upheld and true love just couldn't be denied.

 

~

 

“Oh my hills,” Bilbo said, wide-eyed and horrified, during another midnight meeting with his fellow schemer after she'd told him of how Vinca Pincup and Girasol Goold were no longer pen-friends because of some truly distressing letters. “These people are all absolutely _insane.”_

Lobelia shrugged daintily, her victorious smile sharper than a carving knife. “If they aren't prepared to deal with this, then that's their problem,” she said, looking ever so pleased with herself and their plot. “This is _much_ more fun than I thought it would be.”

“Are we sure that there's still going to be a Shire after we're done with this?”

“The social battlefield isn't a place for mercy, Mister Bilbo.”

Bilbo stared at the hobbit miss he'd chosen to align himself with, neither horrified or surprised, but ultimately resigned. “We've sent all of Hobbiton and some of the Shire besides into chaos just so we can have our way, Miss Lobelia,” he said. “I'm well aware of that. I'm just concerned that my mother is going to tear off your mother's arm and beat her with it, one of these days.”

“Oh my,” Lobelia said, completely unconcerned, “that would put a damper on the wedding.”

Bilbo stared at her for awhile longer, then sighed. “You, Miss Lobelia Bracegirdle, are absolutely incorrigible,” he said, “and I give thanks every day for me being on your side of things.”

“Isn't that why you love me, my heart-pie?” Lobelia cooed, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Hah, no,” Bilbo answered flatly, before setting down his tea on a fence post, hopping down, and looking up at his fellow schemer with the stars in his eyes. “I love you, my sweet pumpkin,” he said lovingly, taking her free hand in both of his, “because Otho is _not_ on your side and you pushed him into a pig pen for daring to try and court a woman in love with someone else.”

Lobelia was actually startled enough that she giggled, actually and genuinely giggled with amusement, which made Bilbo grin widely. Once she got herself back under control, she said, “Oh, _really?”_

Bilbo took one hand away and put it over his heart. “I fell in love all over again,” he swore to her readily. “And I could write songs of your beauty in that moment... with the vicious swirl of your skirts and the malicious glint of your eyes. Poetry waiting to happen, really.”

“Hmm, you're a silver-tongued flatterer, though... a girl does always like to hear how beautiful she is,” Lobelia replied. “Tell me more, my lying heart-pie, about how amazing, gorgeous, and intelligent I am before you shower me with more gifts and help me break our fair Hobbiton into compliance.”

“Anything for you, my violent pumpkin,” Bilbo agreed teasingly.

 

~

 

When the Spring Festival finally, _finally_ rolled around, all of Hobbiton had come to terms with the fact that Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle were deeply, irreversibly in love with one another. Even all the feuds of their families could not stand in the way of such pure and faithful love, so after weeks of bloody knuckles and loose teeth, Hobbiton had finally finished going through its stages of grief.

Denial had been beaten into submission by those sweet flirtations and adoring eyes.

Anger had been washed away by those earnest declarations and faithful longings.

Bargaining had been defeated by a steadfast disinterest in all others and all else.

Depression, with the ice and snow, had melted away after much moaning and sobbing.

And acceptance had finally risen, like a flower peeking out into the safety of spring, as Primrose Boffin-Bracegirdle's locked closet couldn't hold anymore presents and Belladonna Took-Baggins finally noticed just how much tea her husband was consuming to stay calm throughout everything. Resistance against Bilbo and Lobelia's plotting was futile and the mayor's pleading for people to just stop fighting was actually somewhat annoying, now that they could hear him over each other again.

Bilbo Baggins, in his best shirt and a brand new vest, and Lobelia Bracegirdle, in a brand new dress and her hair full of flowers, ran into each others arms in front of the entire Spring Festival. They spun around together, happy to be reunited, showing off their carefully coordinated outfits and carefully choreographed act, while their parents sobbed and hung their heads by the wayside, and the watching crowd sighed in romantic delight at the young, handsome, perfectly-matched and so in-love couple.

Bilbo and Lobelia walked over to Lobelia's father together, hand in hand and unable to stop smiling at each other. Blanco wearily watched them approach, resigned to this nightmare, and did his utmost not to cry when the unacceptable young man who was taking his daughter away grinned at him.

“Mister Bracegirdle, sir, I would like your permission to court your daughter,” Bilbo said, then went back to smiling dreamily at his sweetheart while he waited for an answer. Bilbo even tucked a loose lock of hair behind Lobelia's ear and over a hundred hobbits cooed at them when she fluttered her eyelashes up at him in response.

“Dad,” Lobelia's brother, Bruno, whispered desperately from behind him, “just say yes already. We've already had to replace the curtains four times this month alone and I want to go out into public _normally_ again. Please just surrender already. _Please._ ”

Blanco closed his eyes and did his best to ignore how his wife was sobbing into his shoulder. “Yes,” he said, and he simultaneously felt a great weight lift from his shoulders, both metaphorically in that he didn't have to fight any longer and literally as his wife fainted into his son's arms.

“OH, _COME ON,_ MUM,” Bruno shouted, but his yell was lost among Hobbiton's cries of glee, along with many other hobbits from other parts of the Shire who came specifically to witness this great moment in hobbit history.

People were cheering, shouting, dancing, crying with happiness and relief, and the despondent Bracegirdles and Bagginses were lost among the ecstatic chaos.

And in the middle of it all, Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Bracegirdle were spinning about and laughing, smiling widely and almost glowing with their genuine happiness. After more than half a year's hard work and careful planning, the first stage of their grand plan had succeeded! This was a celebration of their cunning plot's victory that they were glad to let others interpret as being true love.

Happier than he could ever remember being, Bilbo pulled Lobelia in a close embrace and rested his forehead on hers, grinning uncontrollably at his equally giddy conspiring partner.

Through her own bright smile, Lobelia whispered, “I told you that this would go swimmingly.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm going to mark this story as complete, because it can stand alone on its own, but there remains the possibility of future chapters even so. I mean, there still has to be a wedding, and at some point during their happily married life, a person with a pointy hat is going to come knocking.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr, with which I am not doing much of anything, can be found [here](http://lullabyknell.tumblr.com).  
> Ask box is [here](http://lullabyknell.tumblr.com/ask).  
> Fic update tag is [this one right here](http://lullabyknell.tumblr.com/tagged/lullabyknellficnews).


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